The quality of the muse

“And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking… ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: ‘It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.’”

– ‘Be Drunk’ by Charles Baudelaire

Manifestly, since you are not reading this in French, you can go right ahead and presume that the worth of my old French degree (circa 1999) isn’t immediately apparent. However, the wiles of the world as they are, were the worth of said degree immediately apparent, I most certainly wouldn’t be writing en Anglais about mon chien qui s’appelle Waffle. I’d most likely be mired in a lesser endeavour such as working as a translator at the UN or toiling as a lackey with Médecins Sans Frontières. The wiles of the world, eh.

And yet… every now and again – or de temps en temps if you’re reading this en France – I remember little excerpts, little crusts, little shafts of sunlight from my degree and more importantly, that year abroad, which make me realise in resignation that no study of another’s culture is ever squandered.

I remembered about this poem from that luminary, Charles Baudelaire when considering Waffle’s latest antics and consequently, I also wondered how Monsieur Baudelaire might have fared with the bottle had he been living with a similar hairy demon for a span.

Charles Pierre Baudelaire (April 9 1821 –August 31 1867) was a French poet who also worked as an essayist, art critic, philosopher and translator. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhyme and rhythm and most notably, one Marcel Proust once claimed that Baudelaire was “the greatest poet of the 19th century.” Imagine though, how he might have transcended literature altogether had he a muse of the quality of the Waff!

Last weeked, as is our habit, the Waff and I went for a walk on the edge of dark. It was that in-between world when the sun has gone down but it is not quite night-time. It was twilight, it was the gloaming, it was le crepuscule.

Sauntering along in the gloom, I noticed the Waff go stock still, leg cocked. This usually means there is a hare needing chased or a bird requiring a barking. It was neither of these things, as I would soon discover.

“There’s nothing there, clown,” I told the Hairy Fool, after I had scanned the surrounding area. But the Waff wasn’t listening. Instead, he began a rumbling growl which, in any other dog, I might have there attributed a certain menace.

Slowly, cat-like and with renewed silence, Waffle crept down the road ahead; I had stopped and was once again, scanning the fields on either side of the road.

Not wanting to break the spell, I didn’t call out or even follow in the hairy footsteps. I wanted to see if Waffle had cottoned onto something – or someone – that my own senses were failing to discern. Maybe his keen sense of smell had picked out the aroma of squirrel or the perfume of fox. Maybe he was on the trail of trespasser!

As I resumed walking, Waffle’s growling returned only this time it was louder and again, in any other dog, I might have there attributed a certain viciousness. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck rise and for the third time, I glanced around, cursing my earlier decision not to bring a torch.

I quickened my pace to catch up with the Hairy Clown, before he could race off into the bog in pursuit of an invisible fiend. And suddenly, there it was: The object of Waffle’s affliction: A traffic cone.

Late last year, after one of December’s storms had resulted in flooding and a portion of our road’s verge had subsequently collapsed, a kindly neighbour placed a traffic cone near the hole so as to alert motorists to the danger.

Last weekend, after Storm Kathleen had huffed and puffed, the traffic cone blew down on its side and it and it must have been this unprecedented change of perspective which had Waffle all discombobulated.

“It’s a traffic cone, you clown,” I confirmed, as Waffle’s creeping trajectory concluded at the coped cone. “I don’t think it’s about to go all king-of-the-jungle on us just yet.”

Was this be a new low? Another echelon of crazed canine conundrums? I mean, I have seen Waffle chase all manner of creature, from frogs to froxes to deer and door mice. Not until that moment though, had I ever noticed him generate a grievance against an inanimate object – and better still, one he had walked past hundreds of time since it was first installed in December.

Not to be deterred, Waffle circled the fallen cone, the growl all a-rumble. He sniffed at it and then sniffed some more and I was just about to call out, “Geddawayouttathat, dawg!” when he cocked his leg and… took care of business, right onto the fallen cone.

“I need a drink,” I told Waffle and his cone. “And then I’ll need another one.”